Eviction drive conducted at Shahjahanpur railway colony

The railway authorities launched an eviction drive at the Shahjahanpur railway colony in the city on Tuesday in order to free their land from illegal occupation.

The Bangladesh Railway (BR) officials started the eviction drive at 10:00 am and it continued until 5:00pm.

During the drive they pulled down and evicted nearly 250 establishments, including buildings, houses, grocery shops and other structures, BR estate officer at Kamalapur Nazrul Islam told the FE.

The drive is being conducted simultaneously in Dhaka, Sylhet and Mymensingh.

The drive at the colony in Dhaka would continue in the second phase today (Wednesday) and the third phase of drive might be conducted next week.

Some 1,300 illegal establishments are there at the colony, the officials said.

The drive has been initiated with a prior notice served three days earlier. But most of the people were living in the slum without caring about the notice, officials said on the spot.

Locals told the FE that about 100,000 people were living at the colony divided into about 15 separate middle-size slums. In 2001 a major drive was foiled by the slum people, according to the local people.

While visiting the area during the eviction, it was found that some political parties' offices, including that of the ruling Awami League, were demolished.

Rahamatulla, 50, was living at the slum and running a grocery there which was demolished in the drive. He told the FE they knew that a drive would be launched in this regard.

They were living there and running business paying kickbacks to the local influential people and political figures, but in the drive a good number of political party offices were also pulled down.

Earlier on the day, Railway Minister Md. Nurul Islam Sujon at a press conference mentioned about the railway drive. He said efforts were being made to evict illegal establishments in a bid to meet the goal of building an economically viable country.

He added that there were several thousand illegal establishments at railway colony.

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